Guidelines for special advertising opportunities within magazines

Research has shown that magazines enjoy a special one-to-one relationship with their readers. It is this special relationship and their more intense readership that gives magazines a unique ability to position, enhance and brand the products and services of their advertisers.

These characteristics and the information quality of magazines have not only been important in attracting traditional advertising to magazines, but have also been a key factor in the growing demand from advertisers for special advertising sections, more commonly known as 'advertorials' and sponsored editorial. With these special opportunities, the advertiser is able to draw on the credibility that association with a title confers on a product or service. Advertorials, described as 'the look that fits' enjoy keen readership, performing as they do the special function of providing consumers with in-depth information on products and services.

As this form of promotion develops and becomes more widespread, it is important that guidelines are available to assist publishers and advertisers and to ensure that special advertising opportunities continue to work for the benefit of readers, advertisers, editors and publishers alike.

The guidelines have been drawn up following consultation with magazine publishers within PPA and with other relevant industry bodies. These have included the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA)_, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), the Newspaper Publishers Association (NPA) The Newspaper Society (NS) the Institute of Public Relations (IPR), the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA), and the Advertising Standards Authority/Committee of Advertising Practice (ASA/CAP).

The guidelines should be applied to any material presented in the main body of a magazine and to any supplement or inserted material. Publishers of dedicated or contract magazines produced by a commercial sponsor should take note of the guidelines.

In the event of concern and complaint, full details should be forwarded to the PPA for advice and conciliation.

Special Advertising Sections

The guidelines are designed to cover those sections of a magazine paid for by the advertiser and created in an editorial style associated with the title,.

1. All existing industry guidelines and codes of practice governing advertisements shall be deemed to apply to special advertising sections also. Claims must therefore be substantiated.

2. Readers should not be misled into believing that a particular section of a magazine, which in some way has been paid for by an advertiser, forms part of the editorial content of the publication. Through appropriate labelling, readers should be left in no doubt that what they see before them has been paid for by an advertiser.

3. Material of this kind should, therefore, be clearly identified.

3.1 The words 'advertisement', 'advertising', 'advertisement promotion' or 'advertisement feature' should be sued to describe special advertising sections. The term 'advertorial'; should not be used in this context.

3.2 The labelling should be consistently applied and should be displayed prominently and legibly on each page or spread affected.

3.3 Staff writers' by-lines should not appear in special advertising sections.

4. The size and number of special advertising sections within a single issue should not be out of balance with the size and nature of the magazine. The credibility of the title should not be compromised through excessive use of special advertising sections.

This section of the guidelines is designed to cover those instances where an advertiser pays to have a company/product name associated with editorial in a magazine or a supplement to a magazine.

1. Material of this kind should be clearly labelled as being sponsored.

2. Editors should ensure that the name of the company/product does not assume undue prominence.

3. The content should be subject to final approval of the editor.

4. When an advertiser's company/product name is associated with a competition within the editorial of a magazine in consideration of a payment and/.r the supply of prizes, the editor should have the final right of approval for the nature of the competition and the content of the material.

5. Where a charge is made by a publisher for the cost of producing an illustration of a company's product, one of the following worms of wording should appear on a relevant page. 'Suppliers have contributed towards the production costs of some of the editorial photographs/material in this issue/on this page'. 'The editorial photographs on this page are courtesy of the suppliers whose products they feature'. 'This journal includes editorial material/photographs provided and paid for by suppliers'.

6. When a product name is mentioned in consideration of the supply of visual or written material for a feature, readers should be informed of the source of material e.g. 'photographs/copy supplied by...'

This section of the guidelines is designed to cover those instances where an advertiser and a publisher have entered into an agreement whereby the advertiser purchases the space to publish a pre-determined number of articles over a number of issues of a particular title.

Although such material contains no overt advertising message, nonetheless it is clearly sponsored and should therefore be subject to the conditions which pertain to sponsored editorial.